shunt

Meanings

Verb

• To cause to move (suddenly), as by pushing or shoving; to give a (sudden) start to.
• To divert to a less important place, position, or state.
• To provide with a shunt.
• To move data in memory to a physical disk.
• To divert electric current by providing an alternative path.
• To move a train from one track to another, or to move carriages, etc. from one train to another.
• To have a minor collision, especially in a motor car.
• To divert the flow of a body fluid.
• To turn aside or away; to divert.
• To carry on arbitrage between the London stock exchange and provincial stock exchanges.

Noun

• An act of moving (suddenly), as due to a push or shove.
• A connection used as an alternative path between parts of an electrical circuit.
• The shifting of the studs on a projectile from the deep to the shallow sides of the grooves in its discharge from a shunt gun.
• An abnormal passage between body channels.
• A passage between body channels constructed surgically as a bypass; a tube inserted into the body to create such a passage.
• A switch on a railway used to move a train from one track to another.
• A minor collision between vehicles.

Origin

• From Middle English shunten, schunten, schonten, schounten, shont, shonte, shount, shounten, shunte, either:
• possibly a back-formation from Middle English shonen ("to decline to do, refuse; to abandon, forsake; to disdain, dislike, hate; to avoid, escape; to be afraid, fear; to be wary of"), from Old English scunian, scynigan; see shun. Or
• an alteration of Middle English shunden, *schunden, *schinden, from Old English scyndan, scendan (as in āscyndan, from Proto-Germanic *skundijaną ("to compel, drive, push; to accelerate, rush, speed up"), from Proto-Indo-European *sku(n)t-, *ku(n)t-.
• The English word is cognate with Danish skynde ("to hasten, hurry, speed"), Icelandic skynda, skunda, Middle High German schünden ("to compel; to urge; to irritate"), Norwegian skynde ("to hurry, rush"), Swedish skynda ("to hasten, hurry; to scuttle, scurry"). Outside Germanic, compare Sanskrit स्कन्दति ("to dart, leap, spring, spurt or burst forth, ejaculate, assail, drop, split"), Albanian shkund ("to shake; to swig").
• As regards the noun sense, compare Middle English shunt ("swerve; sudden jerk"), derived from the verb.